Almost every time I get off the highway when I drive into “my” city there is a person standing at the top of the off ramp holding a “Homeless and _____ “sign (Homeless Vet, Homeless and Hungry, Homeless with Children, Homeless and Unemployed). The other day 3 out of the 4 off ramps had someone standing there.

I hate this.

I used to give them a dollar or two, handed out the barely-opened window of my locked car door, until I was told (by someone who is fairly cynical, but also probably right) that these are usually people who are not actually homeless, but who do this as their “part time job,” and that there are plenty of services in Our Fair City designed to help them, of which most of them do not avail themselves.

But even when I would give them money I hated it.

I would like to give them cards for the organizations that will help them find homes, or jobs. I would like to give them a sandwich and a bottle of water. I don’t believe they want these things from me.

And I hate it.

I hate being confronted by my guilt, and my luck, every single time I drive into town. I sit there in my nice car, drinking coffee from newly-roasted beans out of a well-made insulated coffee mug with a full belly and a nice coat around my shoulders and a house to come home to that has electricity and heat and running water. I know I’ve worked for all of this, but I also know that I have been amazingly lucky — born to good parents who fed and housed me and expected me to do well in school and an exceptional education and some natural talent that I had the good sense to utilize and a husband with a good job. Some of it I’ve earned, and some of it I’ve tripped and fallen over.

It’s even worse with Only Daughter in the car. She hates that she has so much and so many have so little (and by so much I mean a full belly and a coat around her shoulders and a house to come home to that has electricity and heat and running water; we’re not rich, unless you compare us to the rest of the world). She feels terribly guilty and sad every time we encounter someone on the street or on one of these off ramps. She hates the idea that people sleep on sidewalks or park benches and pee in doorways and eat the stuff they find in garbage cans. She sees them and lets out this short little groan of despair; and I tell her “don’t make eye contact.”

(I’m such a good mom.)(I never have kleenex in my purse, either.)

There was this homeless person in the town I used to live in in central Illinois. Everybody knew him — his family had money, he struggled with mental illness, he didn’t want to be hospitalized and couldn’t live with his family so he lived on the streets, wearing his tattered coat and pushing his little shopping cart around and mumbling to himself. He was gentle and completely harmless, and I used to try to bring him coffee and sandwiches when I saw him, but invariably by the time I returned with the coffee and sandwiches he would have moved on.

I’m not heartless, but you can’t help everyone, and some of what I do professionally raises money for these very agencies which are there to help these people, but I still hate it.

Is it just me? Are we being manipulated by these people, standing there on off ramps with their not-as-tattered-as-might-be-expected coats and their pathetic little cardboard signs? Are they using our guilt, and our awareness of our own luck, against us? Or is that just the cynical me talking?

I feel exactly the same! There is no doubt in my mind that a proportion of such people are indeed trying to manipulate me. I am especially cynical about those who seem to have the franchise for dispensing god’s blessings on those who give to their cause. In your part of the world being a “vet” apparently also makes you particularly worthy of sympathy (I would feel the opposite feeling for someone who was apparently willing to go and destroy the lives of Afghans/Iraqis/etc).

On the other hand, I can see that there are vast numbers of people who are worse off than me, merely because of being born into a different situation, with parents who weren’t relatively well-off middle class westerners or because of mental illness, or loss of employment.

The problem is that I can’t readily distinguish a manipulative person from a case of genuine hardship. And anyway, if I gave away everything I had it would make no discernible difference to the global poverty. And besides, even if some people are being manipulative to try & get money from me, doesn’t that just show how desperate they are? Who really chooses to beg for a living?

My compromise is to support a few local poor people who I’ve gotten to know a little, and to give significant donations to one charity that works with much poorer people overseas. More significantly, I vote for the party that seems most willing to spend my tax money on restoring equality in the world.

But really, my strategy only works to keep my conscience subdued enough to allow me to get on with life without being too depressed. If I really think about it, I can’t justify my comfortable existence and there is no logical or emotional solution to the dilemma.

Maybe some of them are hustling as a part-time jobs, others are legit. Hard to tell. I know the feeling you express – I work with a lot of homeless agencies and always felt like I did ‘enough on the job’ but still felt like a stingy jerk at stoplights when someone would ask for help. I’m doing something as an alternative. Last Christmas, I did a sock drive and got 1500 pairs of new socks donated that I gave to homeless shelters. Right now, I have a Time of the Month Club where a bunch of people ante up a box of Tampax or pads once a month for donation to a homeless shelter. It doesn’t change the world but it makes life better for homeless people. Plus it makes me feel like I’m doing something instead of driving by with my coffee and donut. Just a thought.